slow animals
by Zabazaba
Summary: Life carries on smoothly, for him, as Pin catches glimpses of Yano growing up. Or: Pin falls in love with Ayane (slowly, and with a lot of stops and starts). (also cross-posted on my ao3)


When Pin sees Yano grouped tightly over the counter of Tetsuryuken with the rest of the kids, it's been a year since their graduation. He's seen all of them at least a few times over the year when they've come back for their breaks—all of them except for Yano—and he grins as he breezes through the door. "You guys are way too loud!" he shouts over them as he walks inside, to which Yoshida replies _he's _the loud one as she throws a spoon at his head. He narrowly avoids it, but still catches Yano's eyes widening for a fraction of a second, as if she wasn't expecting to see him. Did she really think she would never see him again after graduation? The town is only so big, after all, and she had to come back sometime. She quickly recovers and sticks out her tongue at him, and Kuronuma frets, and Shouta tries to calm her down, and Ryuu smirks into his mug.

_It's nice_, he thinks, _having them all back together_. 

* * *

She doesn't come back home the next two years because she has an internship or some sort of job lined up in Tokyo. He only knows this because he overhears Yoshida on the phone with Ryuu when she's closing down the shop one night, telling him all about her plans to visit Tokyo next week with Kuronuma. He lingers over his ramen until she hangs up the phone, taking his time to sip his broth and pick at his noodles. He doesn't even look up from his bowl when he asks Yoshida how she's holding up, not even mentioning Yano by name. It's a casual question, one from a teacher who hasn't seen his student in a while; he's a great teacher, after all, one that's allowed to be interested in how his past students are doing.

He immediately regrets it when he looks up and sees the grin that curls on Yoshida's face and the glint in her eyes. She's only ten seconds into her taunt when he walks straight out the door, resolving that he won't bother asking ever again. 

* * *

The next time Pin sees her is at Yoshida and Ryuu's wedding. It is a beautiful event, he knows this, but it's also an odd experience to see two kids he watched grow up getting married. It's even weirder for him when he slides into an empty space at the crowded bar to realize that it's _Yano_ who's standing next to him, sipping a cocktail. She smiles at him over the rim of her glass as he and tries to recover some level of compusure. "Aren't you too young to be drinking?" he wonders out loud as he flags down the bartender.

"I'm 22, you know," she says simply, and he knows it isn't a brag, it isn't a way to say, _Look, I'm really no longer a kid now_. It's just a fact. "_And_ we're at a wedding for my classmates," she points out, gesturing to the rest of the reception—as if he could forget that kids ten years his junior were getting married.

"You have me there," he says, raising his glass to clink against hers, and she nods her head in acknowledgment. "And so—is Tokyo all you thought it would be?" he asks after he swallows and sets his glass down, looking down at her. He realizes they haven't talked like this, not really, since she graduated.

She throws her head back and lets out a hum, considering. "Different," she settles on, turning to face him more fully. "But good. Challenging." She smiles then, and he feels himself grinning back at her. "I also see you don't have a plus one," she smirks after a moment. "Still no girlfriend?" He sputters a little on his drink.

"Oi!" he shouts, pointing his finger in her face. "I do have a girlfriend! She's just out of town this weekend for business and couldn't make it." She nods solemnly with a frown on her face, patting his arm, and he jerks it away from her with a huff. "Don't pity me—I'm _serious_," he insists. "Besides, I don't see _you_ here with anyone."

She hesitates, fingers clutching her glass carefully, a blush settling high on her cheeks. "My boyfriend is here, actually. From university."

"Oh ho," he whistles, and her blush deepens. He leans his back against the bar to survey the room. "Where is the lucky guy? Is he the one over by the buffet line? With the overbite? Or is it unibrow by the gift pile?"

"Shut _up_!" she grits out, shoving him, but he doesn't budge an inch. "Don't be annoying about it!" And he can't help but laugh at how embarrassed she's getting.

"You like him?" he asks after a moment, when she finally stops grumbling.

"I do," she admits slowly, and he catches her smiling. Warmly. Confidently. He smiles back.

"Good." 

* * *

She emails him three months later, after she's officially graduated, letting him know she landed a full-time job offer at some big-name finance firm. At the bottom of the message, there is a picture attached of Tokyo Bay, the view from her desk, where he spots an eraser in a plastic bag off to the corner of it. He doesn't reply for a full week, but when he does, he writes back, "It's just the beginning—I'm excited to see where you end up."

His girlfriend laughs when he announces he's the best teacher in the world that night, and if his kids notice he's a bit more fired up than usual about the power of their dreams that week, they don't mention it. 

* * *

Kuronuma comes back to Kitahoro, but this time to teach. He laughs at how awkward she is when she arrives for the first day of her orientation, and laughs even harder when the first day of school starts. As the kids file into her classroom, he peeks in and sees her biting her cheek nervously, arms stiff at her sides, but head held high. He gives her a thumbs up as he passes, and she lets out a soft smile. The kids, he finds out, like her almost immediately. He nods to himself when he hears, congratulating himself once again for being an excellent mentor. When he stops by her room later in the week, he sees a colorful arrangement of flowers on her desk and catches Yano's name on the card nestled in them. 

* * *

The next time Yano comes back, he doesn't really _see_ _her_ see her, but he catches her walking arm in arm with Kuronuma and Yoshida from a distance early on a Saturday morning. He was walking back from his girlfriend's place—no, _ex_-girlfriend now, as of today—and would have missed them, if it wasn't for the shouts that suddenly sprang up from their direction. He sees Yano's face scrunch up at something Yoshida says, how Kuronuma physically recoils in shock, and the slight pause before all three of them start cackling hysterically and far too loudly for a Saturday morning.

He's ready to go over there and tell them to shut it already, but he decides to let it go when they all collapse onto each other giggling, grasping each other's shoulders. He walks back home, feeling maybe not as down as before. 

* * *

He walks into Tetsuryuken after another late-night baseball practice, so dirty and sore and tired and starving, that it doesn't even occur to him how unusually loud the shop is as he approaches. But when he steps into the doorway, eyes adjusting to the bright lights, he stops, trying to process the scene before him. Because there is Yoshida, bent over the counter, tears leaking out of her eyes from how hard she's laughing, and Kuronuma is there, gasping out an "Ayane-chan!" and Yano—Yano is there, leaning over them, waving her arms around with a smile curling on her lips, deep in a story she's telling.

He stands there unmoving, blinking at the light, feeling like he isn't supposed to be there—_they _aren't supposed to be there—like he's arriving ten years too late for this scene with these kids. But then Yano looks up at him and smiles, and he feels something inside him lurch. It brings him out of his trance, drags him through ten years of time. He steps inside. 

* * *

When Pin is 35, word gets around that Yano's dad is very sick. Her mom can't work full time and take care of him, he hears, so Yano is back in town. "Just for a little while," she says offhandedly when he runs into her on the street, as she calmly readjusts the scarf around her neck, "until they're back on their feet."

He doesn't doubt her for a second. She has places yet to go. 

* * *

"Don't be _lame_, Pin," she taunts. They are all trying to bully him into tagging along for karaoke after they ran into him on their way there.

"I am an _adult_," he repeats with a frown on his face, "and it is a _school night_."

"Laaaame," Yoshida shouts at him, hands circling her mouth, as if she really needed to be any louder.

"Live a little," Yano tries again, and a little drunk, he thinks, as she hooks her arm around the street light and swings around it. "You're still young—come with us!" He can see her better now from where she's standing. Her eyes are shining brightly under the light, skirt hitting high on her thighs, and there's a light flush on her cheeks, and she looks…

"You should come," Kuronuma pipes up beside him, and the illusion is shattered.

"It's a school night for you too, Kuronuma." He turns to scowl at her, but she smiles easily and leans into Shouta further.

"Come hang," Shouta offers with a shrug, and Pin lets out a sigh, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"For two songs," he warns, and he doesn't let up his frown when they cheer around him. Not even when Yano loops her arm around his to drag him along behind her or when Ryuu puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He does smile, though, on his third song of the evening. When they're all booing him and throwing scraps of the snacks that they ordered his way. When he catches Yano leaning into Kuronuma's side, eyes closed and laughing. 

* * *

She breaks up with her boyfriend on a Friday.

He finds her alone at the bar the night it happens, chin on the counter, looking glumly through her near-empty glass. A guy is perched on the stool next to her, chatting away, not realizing that she isn't even listening to him. The guy stops talking when Pin settles on the other stool, shooting him a glare that tells him to beat it. Yano doesn't look up the entire time, not even when he ruffles her hair to get her attention, and he adjusts his jaw in quiet concern.

He doesn't ask her if it was serious, because he knows they were together for four years, or something like that. (He thinks he heard her mention to Yoshida once that they had even talked about getting married.) He doesn't ask where her friends are either, because they're the ones who called him earlier that night to help them find her, or if they broke up because of the distance or something else. Instead, he says, "You'll be all right," and tries for an easy smile. "Besides, now you'll have more time to focus and work hard!"

Her arms come up around her head and onto the worn wood of the bar, and she hums. She doesn't say anything else. He takes a sip of sake, considering, before he finally says, "I know it's hard. Your first heartbreak is always the worst."

She does turn her face to meet his eyes at that. A sad smile plays on her lips, and he tries to ignore how his heart tugs in response. "Don't worry, Pin," she murmurs. "It's not my first."

He feels his pulse beating dully in the tips of his fingers, his face growing hot. He grips the counter so he has something to do with his hands. It occurs to him that she is no longer 17 and crying in his living room with snow clinging to her hair as chocolate melts on his tongue. But she has the same look in her eyes as then, and he can't really bear the uncertain feeling that's coiling in his chest.

"You've really grown up, huh?" he laughs as he scratches the back of his neck, to lighten the mood. She hums into the crook of her elbow again, but she at least smiles into it this time.

When he walks her back home later that night, she mock salutes him as she steps inside, and he feels something shift back into place. 

* * *

_It's easier after that night_, he thinks, _for some reason_. They're always going to be his students, but Yoshida and Ryuu have been an old married couple at the shop for so long, and Kuronuma has been his colleague for two years already, and Shouta has been helping out at Kitahoro as a trainer for almost as long as that. Now, finally, there is a place for Yano. A place where he meets her at the bar every Friday night, and occasionally for karaoke when the rest of them pressure him into joining; the seat that opens up for him next to her at Tetsuryuken whenever he walks in and she's already deep in conversation with Yoshida and Kuronuma; the pair of narrowed eyes he catches above the heads in a crowd when he knows he's been laughing too loud, bent from the force of it—where her mouth shapes into the word "idiot," only for him to shout back, "You're the idiot!"

_Maybe the place of a friend_, he thinks. 

* * *

It's past ten o'clock. He's crouched down behind a wall, observing two of his students shouting at each other outside the convenience store, even though it's _past ten o'clock_. A couple's spat, he's gathered, and he's about to abandon his spot in the alley as their voices reach a critical volume, when a "what are you doing?" rings out suddenly from the darkness.

He falls away from the wall he was leaning on, clutching his chest in shock, only to see Yano standing there with her arms crossed, staring down at him.

"What the hell was that!" he yells at her, and she only quirks her eyebrow in response. "Oi, don't look at me like that!" He gestures madly toward the teenagers. "They're my students—I have a _responsibility_ to watch out for them."

She snorts. "Still nosy as ever, I see."

"I am not nosy! I am _diligent_—"

"Yeah, yeah," she says with a wave her hand. "You were a total creep, Pin, even back then."

"A _creep_?" he shouts, indignant, pulling himself off the ground to stand back up. "You brats would have never made it if I wasn't around to watch out for you." Yano rolls her eyes, but the effect is dampened by her having to crane her neck just to look at his face.

He finds himself grinning madly, and he realizes that he _missed _this. He missed trading barbs and blows with her like it was nothing, blood running hot and tempers running high, only for them to call a truce and do it all over again.

She opens her mouth to say something probably devastatingly caustic when someone coughs beside them. He turns his head, and his two students are standing there, a few feet away, eyes cautious. "Is everything okay, Arai-sensei?" one of them asks hesitantly, and he hears Yano choke out an "Arai-sensei?" at that and laugh behind him. He clenches his fist, because really, the _nerve_ of her, he is a professional, damn it—

And then Yano is suddenly at his side, threading her arm through his, smiling. "Yup, we're all good," she says cheerfully, patting his arm. "Just a conversation between friends." His students nod, understanding, not even thinking twice, and Pin is about to say, "Actually, she was my student, hot-headed and stupid just like you guys, can't you see that," but his kids are already smiling and turning away, quick to accept her response. It blankly registers within him that maybe they do look like a pair, even after all this time, standing together outside the convenience store once again.

"Come on, _Arai-sensei_," she teases, pulling him out of the dark. "Let's go." 

* * *

They're both there when Ryuu and Yoshida welcome their first child into the world, a baby girl called Tetsu, named after Ryuu and Toru's mother. When he walks into the hospital room after he's gotten word, Yano is already there, laughing at this very tiny thing that's in her arms and clutching her pinky finger. She tilts the bundle to show Kuronuma, whose hands are clasped together and face is lit up in pure joy.

After Yano's passed the baby along, she comes to lean against the wall next him, a small smile on her face. "I'm happy I'm here for this," she says softly, her eyes pinned to a grinning Yoshida resting on the bed, where Ryuu is wrapped around her, smiling into her neck. He watches her watching them, and a warm thing curls inside his chest.

"Yeah," he says at last. "Me too." 

* * *

When she turns 26, Yano announces she's going to start her own business. On Hokkaido. Here.

"What about Tokyo?" he asks, mouth turning into a frown. Pin's heard the way she talks about her life there, how her mouth curls lovingly around the word "Tokyo," the names of her friends, the university where she grew into herself, the place he always thought she would return to.

"Hokkaido is better situated," she states matter-of-factly before she launches into a full-blown lecture about the quality of the suppliers she has already scouted, the plan she has for recruiting investors, and her tentative five and ten year timelines. Pin blinks as he feels his initial shock that settled on his face morph into a full-fledged grin. This was Yano. Of course.

"Then we should celebrate," he decides after she's finished, and she smiles so brightly at him that it almost hurts to look at.

"Besides," she says after they clink their glasses together, "why wouldn't I stay? All the things I love most are here." He feels his heart skip a beat then and distantly wonders if he should get that checked out. 

* * *

When Kuronuma and Shouta get married, it is in the summer and beautiful. Pin tiptoes around Shouta's dad, trying to avoid a scolding, but even Kazehaya Shochiro is too happy for that today.

Pin is laughing at some dumb stunt Yoshida has pulled when he spots Yano across the way and his breath actually catches in his throat a bit. She's laughing too, with Kuronuma, doubled over with her hands on her hips. There's a distant voice that rings somewhere in his head that's telling him he's never seen something so beautiful as when she smiles at everyone that approaches her, because she already knows she looks great, doesn't need to ask anyone to confirm it. Something warm in his chest unfurls as he watches her smile and dance and sing with her friends, totally in the moment.

A lot of men are coming up talk to her, he realizes over the course of the day, men staring too obviously and closely at the slit in her dress that exposes the length of one of her legs. She smiles prettily and dances with a few of them, but politely backs away when they start to leaning in too closely. One by one they begin to group together in mutual despair, bemoaning their bad luck. Even now, even more so, men love her, and he ignores how his heart clenches at that, shoves down that gut instinct to tell each guy who approaches her off, because she's not a kid anymore. She can take care of herself.

He's seated next to her at the reception, and he offers a stiff, "You look nice," as they sit. He doesn't know what came over him right then, why he was compelled to say that, say anything at all. But he doesn't miss how she looks up at him in surprise, eyes crinkling when she smiles so widely, and he has to look away before his face gets redder than it surely is. Her knee knocks into his leg during dinner and stays there.

It's warm. 

* * *

He's walking to the store to pick up some groceries when he sees her in the park, carrying baby Tetsu on her hip, when a little boy face plants on the asphalt right in front of them. Immediately, Pin sees the tears beginning to overflow in his eyes, his breath hitching on what's sure to be an earsplitting scream. But Yano has kneeled down next to him, securely adjusting Tetsu on her hip, while she helps the kid up into a sitting position. The poor kid looks so stunned that the scream he was about to let out dies on his lips.

Pin watches her mouth move, then smile, only for the little kid to nod hesitantly. She brings Tetsu closer to the kid and pats him on the head with the baby's chubby hand. He hears both the baby and kid laugh together, even from this distance, and she's smiling at both of them. All that's running through his head at that moment is, _Kind. You are a kind person_. She catches his eye from across the park, and he lifts up his hand up weakly in a semblance of a wave. She grins back and waves the baby's chubby arm in response. 

* * *

"You really did it this time, old man," he hears a voice from his side say, but he can't quite make out where it's coming from or who it belongs to.

"Old man?" he asks groggily, tongue heavy in his mouth. He thinks he's walking.

"Yes," the voice hisses, and he hears the rattle of metal and a crunch and a creak—_keys_, he thinks, _and is this his door?_ "Who gets into a drinking contest at your age, huh?" And the next moment he's being pressed down onto his bed by tiny hands and feels his shoes being slipped off his feet.

"I'm not that old," he hears himself say, and then feet padding into his kitchen and his faucet turning on. He rolls over to see Yano walking toward him with a glass of water.

"Drink," she commands, pressing the glass against his mouth. He sips slowly, feels a few drops go down his chin, pooling on his neck.

"I feel like shit," he croaks out, and he has to close his eyes, fighting down a wave of nausea that suddenly overtakes him.

"I bet," she murmurs, and he hears the glass carefully placed down on the ground next to his bed. "But you totally kicked that guy's ass, if it makes you feel any better." He raises his fist above him in victory, only for it to immediately crumple back down, and he feels himself smile when he hears Yano laugh. "Will you be all right here by yourself?" she asks after a beat, and he opens his eyes to meet her gaze.

"Yeah," he says, and later he thinks that was a lie. Sober Pin would not have sat up to shuck off his shirt that definitely reeked of beer in front of Yano before collapsing back onto the bed and rolling under the covers, only to then slip off his jeans and toss them on the floor as well. He misses how her face flushes in the dark, how her eyes follow the plane of his chest, his stomach. "But it's late, isn't it?" he asks her, unassuming. "You shouldn't walk back by yourself." She hesitates, fingers grasping the hem of her skirt, and he throws his arm in the general direction of his hallway closet. "There's a spare futon in there."

He closes his eyes again when she mutters a quiet, "All right," and hears her shifting his furniture around to make space on the floor. He thinks he falls asleep before she even finishes up. He must have, because for a passing moment there is silence, and then he was sure he felt a phantom sensation of a hand running through his hair and something warm on his forehead and a heady scent that was calming and lovely. Hadn't someone told him a long time ago that certain scents can help put you to sleep?

When he wakes up the next morning, there is no futon on his floor, but there is a glass of water by his bed. He sees a sticky note attached to it that reads, "Take care of yourself, idiot," and in smaller scribble to the side, "thanks." 

* * *

He didn't mean to eavesdrop this time. Really, he didn't. It was nearly midnight in the dead of summer, quiet except for the hum of the fireflies flitting between the trees and crickets singing in the grass. He couldn't sleep and needed to get some air, to escape his suffocating apartment.

"Do you still feel the same way?" he hears a quiet voice ask in the darkness, and his eyes narrow, trying to pinpoint the sound. He pokes his head carefully around the corner and sees Yano and Kuronuma sitting outside her door, underneath the dull glow of a streetlight. Kuronuma's hands are clasped in her lap, while Yano reclines with her hands behind her on the ground. He quickly moves back behind the corner, knowing he should walk away. This looks like a private talk between friends. Serious.

"No," he hears Yano reply, "it's different now."

"In what way?" Kuronuma asks, and there's a pause.

"It's steadier," Yano finally says. "Less scary and jittery. It just is—like it's a part of me, you know? It's been like this for too long for it not to be." He should walk away.

Kuronuma hums in response, and the crickets chirp steadily, filling the silence. "Are you going to tell him?" He feels his heart jump into his throat. He really should walk away _right_ _now_.

"Ah," Yano sighs. "Probably not." He hears Kuronuma begin to speak up, but Yano cuts her off. "It's not a lack of courage, or anything like that," he hears her say quickly. "He just seems happy with how things are. I don't want to be the one to ruin that for him or make him uncomfortable. Seeing him happy is enough."

He does walk away then, with clenched fists, something else clenching in his chest. It's something he's felt a few times now, something he has still yet to name. He ends up walking for hours. 

* * *

He waits for an hour, then two, but she doesn't come to the bar. At first, his fingers thrum against the counter in growing irritation, because Yano is _never _this late, until it slowly occurs to him that something might be wrong. He decides to call her cell, but it goes straight to voicemail. He gets up then, and starts trudging through the snow on his way to her house.

Her front door is unlocked when he gets there, and he decides he's about to go _off_ on her when he finally gets ahold of her, because who just leaves their door unlocked, anyone could just _wander in_ you know, but he blinks when he pushes open the door. He's dropped her off here plenty of times, but he realizes he's never actually been inside before. He steps inside and doesn't quite know what he's looking for when he notices a lump move under a heap of blankets on the couch.

"Oi, Yano," he calls as he approaches, only for the lump to burrow deeper into the blankets and let out a cough that rattles the whole structure. "Yano," he tries again, peeling back the layers until he finds her, sweaty and pale and curled in on herself. "Are you okay?" he asks, and she only groans, eyes tightly shut.

"You idiot, you should have told me you were sick," he says, but she doesn't reply. He carefully lifts her and the blanket stack in his arms—and damn, she's out cold, she doesn't even open her eyes—as he starts walking down the hall, toeing open doors until he finds her bedroom. He lowers her carefully on the bed and tucks the blankets a bit tighter around her.

There are a strings of pictures posted up around her bed, taking up the whole wall, really. It looks like they're from all phases of her life, put up in a seemingly random order—some baby pictures, ones of her growing up with her parents, plenty of shots with Kuronuma and Yashido in their high school uniforms, some pictures with people he doesn't recognize (_college_, he thinks, and he lingers over those the longest). He almost misses it as he turns away, with the dozens of other photos that are arranged around it, but he sees it—him and her, smiling brightly at each other, wrapped up in coats, snow falling down on them. So much younger than they are now. _God, she's young there_, he thinks, and something like guilt or dread crawls down his spine and pools in his stomach. He fingers the edge of the picture carefully, tense, as he tries to place the memory.

Hatsumōde, he remembers, ten years ago. "Where did she even get this," he whispers to himself. _And_ _why did she put it up, _he thinks_._ He looks at his face in the photo, mostly unchanged from how it is now, but something like nausea floods over him, and he feels ill. He glances down at her, dead to the world, and he pushes the thing down that threatens to rip out of his throat or burn up his lungs. _Later_, he thinks, _there is time for this later_. He turns on his heel and leaves her room.

He starts making his way around her apartment, until he finds a clean rag that he soaks in cool water and some cold medicine in her bathroom cabinet. He takes a breath before he walks back into her room, placing the rag on her head, and helping her sit up enough to get the red-colored syrup down her throat. When she begins to cough it up, he patiently helps her sip some water. He carefully lowers her back down once her breathing settles.

He sits cross-legged on the floor next to her, staring at her with a frown on his face, considering. He must have fallen asleep like that after a while, because he jolts back into awareness when he feels a hand curling around his forearm. She's blinking up at him with glassy eyes, as if she isn't sure if he's actually there. "Idiot," he says lowly, and the grip on his arm loosens slightly.

"Hey," she whispers, and her voice sounds _bad_. "I'm happy you're here, Pin," she says after a beat, voice quiet and cracking around his name, and he isn't sure if that guilt he was feeling coils tighter around his heart or starts to ebb away.

"Idiot," he repeats instead, but more gently this time, as he tucks her arm back under the covers. "Just go back to sleep." 

* * *

He isn't _avoiding_ her, he tells himself. He really is just that busy. Baseball quarter-finals are fast approaching, as is the admission exams for his students, and he's trying to juggle too many things at once. And avoiding his former student because he's worried he might have developed feelings for her seems like a really not mature thing to do, so no, he's not avoiding her. He's just thinking, taking some time, and maybe hating himself a little bit.

Toru tells him it really isn't so bad when he comes into town, watching Pin mope and drink by himself on the floor—that it's not like he felt these things when she was his student, that he didn't do anything wrong, that they're both adults and can make their own decisions, and _Pin,_ _you deserve to be happy_, _you know_.

"But she's so much younger," he says to the ceiling, and Toru grasps his shoulder and tells him maybe he's not giving her enough credit.

He's been busy. And thinking. And trying to get busier so he's not just thinking all the time, and he's pretty sure his players are nearly about to riot with the way he's running them ragged. So, when someone starts pounding on his door in the middle of the night, right as he was about to settle down to sleep, he can't quite feel sorry for how aggressively he yanks it back with a scowl on his face until he realizes who it is that's banging on his door.

"What the fuck, Pin?" Yano asks before he can even say anything. "You've stood me up three weeks in a row now, and you're not answering any of my calls. What gives?" He's not sure he's ever seen her this angry before, because she's not even yelling. She looks perfectly calm, and he knows that this is worse.

"Sorry," he gets out finally, "I've been really busy with—"

"You've been too busy to shoot me a text? Come on," she says. She waits for him to say something. He thinks it's never been this hard to find words in his life. She blinks at him, her eyes a bit red, and he wonders distantly if she's been crying. "Come find me when you figure it out, then." She looks disappointed when she turns and walks down his steps, her back fading into the dark, and he feels a pit opening up in his stomach.

_This feels worse_. 

* * *

He finds her by chance at the train station the next morning. He barely slept the entire night, laying awake, starring at his ceiling. He settles down next to her on the bench, and they watch the trains come and go in silence. It is uncomfortable, and he hates it.

"I'm sorry," he says, when he finally turns to look at her. "I was going through something, and I didn't handle it well. It came out at you, and I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to hurt you." Yano turns to look at him, too, her face softer than it was the night before, and he looks down at their hands when she grabs his.

"We're friends, right?" she asks suddenly, and her eyes are fierce even if her face is soft. "Friends are here to support each other. Just let me know next time, you idiot. I want to help you."

_The guilt is still there_, he thinks. _The uncertainty. The shame_. But it feels lesser now, maybe. But, God, he feels old. He's 37 this year, and he likes to think he is pretty young and energetic and still full of fire, but sitting next to her now has never made him feel older.

"All right?" she prompts again, nudging his shoulder, out of his thoughts, and she looks beautiful, even now. Her eyes are sharp, her hand is warm around his, and she really is beautiful. He thinks he doesn't want to feel badly anymore.

"All right," he croaks out, and her grip tightens. 

* * *

He takes her out for ice cream as an apology, even though it's snowing outside and he doesn't want any. She smiles at him, brightly, and things fall back into place. 

* * *

She comes around the school now, sometimes. Mostly to the baseball games with Yoshida and Ryuu, but she occasionally drops off a quick lunch for him and Kuronuma if she's in the area and not too busy with work. He hears the kids whisper, "Who _is_ that?" when she does. Some of the guys call her "that super-hot lady," while a few others speculate she's his girlfriend. The girlfriend camp is met with laughter and a hearty dose of skepticism, because Arai Kazuichi is now well-known for his infamous bachelor status at Kitahoro.

The kids discuss it seriously, heads bent close at their desks, and he doesn't let himself react at all, not even a tiny bit, even if he wants to whack them upside their damn heads. Because that's all these teenagers need—just _one moment of weakness_ for them to circle and pounce to jumpstart their crazy rumors. Kuronuma isn't any help to him at all, because when his kids ask her who Yano is, she just smiles serenely and replies, "A friend."

All the buzzing speculation ends after the baseball team wins their semi-final game. The players are huddled around him, cheering, and the kids in the stands are loud and on their feet. Things start to settle a bit when the crowd starts to dissipate and he turns to pack things up, but he's almost knocked on his ass by the force of a body running full-speed at him.

His arms come up on instinct to keep from falling, and he realizes belatedly that the thing that's tackled him is _Yano_, and she's hugging him tightly with her hands bunched in the back of his shirt. "Congrats!" she grins happily, and cranes her neck to meet his eyes. _Have her eyes always looked that golden? _he wonders, and even more distantly, _Fuck, she's pretty_. He smiles back at her after a beat, after he remembers himself. When he knocks his palm into her forehead on impulse, she just smiles harder.

"Arai-sensei's super-hot girlfriend" is now her official title amongst his kids. 

* * *

"Are you ever gonna make a move on Yano-chin or what?" Yoshida asks one night, staring at him with her hands underneath her chin, eyeing him critically.

He chokes on his noodles and needs a moment to hack them up from his lungs before he can reply. "_What_?" he asks when he finally catches his breath.

"A move, you idiot. On Yano-chin." She says this as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "You guys have been dancing around each other for years now. We've all seen how you look at her. Right, Ryuu?" Yoshida asks, turning to her husband, who shrugs in response, just staring levelly at Pin. "You both come in here every week making lovey-dovey eyes at each other and I'm sick of it!" she shouts, gripping her hair in frustration before slamming her hand down on the counter repeatedly until his bowl shakes, threatening to topple over onto him. "Just ask her out already!"

"I— I don't— I'm not—" he tries to get out, knowing his face is burning red under their scrutiny, but Yoshida's glare makes his words die in his throat. He hides his face in his hands, because really, is he that transparent? "You guys are just kids," he finally groans out.

Yoshida literally laughs in his face. "Are you an idiot?" she asks, leaning over him. "No, really, are you?" she asks again when he scowls at her. "I have a toddler and am pregnant with twins. Kuronuma and Shouta are married. What kind of idiot things are you saying, idiot!" Pin recoils as she flicks his head, because yeah, he knew this, but when had they grown up so fast?

An image comes to him, unprompted, of Yano standing in the rain, clothes soaked and head downcast, him gripping her shoulder, umbrella forgotten on the ground; her telling him she loves him, legs folded under her at his place, tears running down her face; and, for some reason, her leg pressing into his on Shouta and Kuronuma's wedding day, eyes crinkling up at him. His heart lurches.

"Make a move, dummy," Yoshida says, moving back into the kitchen. "Before a choice is made for you." 

* * *

"We should go out sometime," he blurts out, interrupting her mid-sentence, with approximately zero tact. _Had she been talking?_ he wonders as she turns to look at him, shifting on the bar stool of their Friday night haunt. He can practically feel Yoshida's eyes boring into the back of his skull, even though he knows she's not there, and he shifts in his seat to shake the chill that runs down his spine.

Yano's brow creases. "We come here every week, idiot," she says, but there's a thread of a question underneath.

"No, like—" he stops, running his fingers through his hair nervously. He takes a breath, hoping his face doesn't look as hot as it feels. He's 37 years old, why does he feel like a damn teenager? "A date. We should go on a date."

To her credit, her eyes only widen for a second before her face splits into a beautiful smile, and he feels like his chest might be crumbling apart because something tight just unfurled there. She doesn't say, "So it actually was 10 years after all," or "Have your feelings for me changed?" or "Do you still see me as a kid?" or "Did you know you were the first one to ever believe in me?" or "I have always loved you, even if just a tiny bit, because of that. Even after all these years."

Instead, she slowly reaches her hands up to his head, up to his hair, fingers running through the gel until strands begins to fall in his face. She waits for him to start breathing again—when did he stop breathing?—and look at her. She smiles as her hands come on either side of his face, steadying him as her lips close over his.

"All right." 

* * *

They're lying together on his bed, legs tangled up in each other, and it feels so much more natural than he thought it would—them, together like this. His arm is wrapped around her hip, pulling her onto his chest, and her hands are in his hair, tugging softly.

"You look so much better like this, you know," she says, and he grins at her.

"Too bad it's just going to be spiked up again in the morning."

"You're such an idiot," she huffs, tucking her head under his chin, hand coming up to rest over his heart. He presses his lips against her forehead.

"I love you, too, Yano."


End file.
